Girl Found Living With Monkeys & Walking On All Fours Finds Hope
- A Real-Life Mowgli
- Rescue Attempt
- Monkeys Give Chase
- Poor Health
- Monkey-Like Behavior
- Unusual Way of Moving Around
- Eating off the Floor
- More Ape-Like Behavior
- A Breakthrough
- Search for Her Family
- Kidnapped or Dead
- Doubt about Her Disappearance
- Hurdles Ahead
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A group of men was working in a jungle in Uttar Pradesh in the north of India in early 2017 when they stumbled upon something startling. The woodcutters were concentrating on their work when they discovered something that would make headlines across the world. While traipsing across the Katarniaghat forest, they encountered a family of monkeys. While that’s not strange, the monkey’s companion was quite unusual.
A Real-Life Mowgli
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It appeared that a little girl was living with the monkeys. Who wouldn’t be shocked by such a thing? According to The Independent, the men claimed she was naked and “very comfortable in the company of monkeys.”
It seemed as though the woodcutters had found a real-life Mowgli, the fictional character from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book series. The character, just like the little girl, is a naked feral child from an area in India. He first appeared in Kipling’s short story In The Rukh published in 1893. Mowgli became one of the most beloved characters in Kipling’s series. In the book, Mowgli is reared by a pack of wolves. Read on to find out what happened to this little girl.
Rescue Attempt
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The men decided they wanted to save the girl. However, their attempts at rescuing the child were thwarted. The monkeys did what they could to protect their pack.
Police got involved and attempted to rescue the girl, who appeared to be between the ages of 10 and 12. They faced a bit of resistance from the monkeys. It seemed as though the young girl had grown close to her adopted family because the primates did what they could to keep her safe. According to a local police officer, “When they tried to rescue the girl, they were chased away by the monkeys.”
Monkeys Give Chase
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The New Indian Press reported that one monkey reportedly attacked an officer as the girl made screeching noises. When the police finally got a hold of the child and put her in a patrol car, the monkeys chased after the vehicle.
According to the New Indian Express, it wasn’t a group of woodcutters but a police party from the Motinagar range in Bahariach who found her. Sub-inspector Suresh Yadav said of the sighting: “We spotted her playing among apes. As we tried to go near the girl, the monkeys surrounded her and some of them pounced on us.”
Poor Health
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At that point, it was unclear how long the little girl had been living with the primates. What was clear, however, was that she looked like she was in very bad health. She was very thin and very dirty and wasn’t wearing any clothing.
The police escorted the little girl to Bahraich District Hospital so she could receive medical attention. Doctors at the facility were finally able to examine the child and learned quite quickly that she was unable to speak. Instead of talking to the hospital staff, the girl screamed at the people who tried to get near her.
Monkey-Like Behavior
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This behavior isn’t unlike something a monkey would do in a stressful and scary situation. And It wasn’t the only similarity that the hospital workers noticed between the child and the group of monkeys that she appeared to have spent some considerable time with.
The child from the jungle who could not talk didn’t appear to understand any languages either. Dr. D.K. Singh, chief medical superintendent of Bahraich District Hospital, said the girl’s behavior made it very challenging for the staff to treat her. “She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to her,” he said. He then added, “The way she moved, even her eating habits, were like that of an animal.”
Unusual Way of Moving Around
The girl was unable to walk like a normal, healthy person on two feet. Instead, she got around by moving on her elbows and knees.
It looked like the child hadn’t eaten for several days, but the young girl had a bizarre way of consuming food when it was finally offered to her. When staff at the hospital attempted to feed the girl, she threw the food onto the floor before eating it. And unlike most children her age, she didn’t always use her hands to feed herself.
Eating off the Floor
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Instead, she sometimes opted to eat the food directly off of the floor with her mouth. It was a very barbaric way of eating. “The way she moved, even her eating habits were like that of an animal,” D.K. Singh explained.
One of the challenges the doctors faced was trying to teach the young girl how to live and behave like a human instead of a primate. It was a very difficult task because she didn’t like interacting with other humans. “She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to her,” Singh told the New Indian Express.
More Ape-Like Behavior
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In addition, another doctor explained that treating the girl was very hard because she was unable to understand what they were saying and doing. The language barrier was a huge obstacle. And she kept making ape-like noises and facial expressions.
The doctors were eventually able to test the child for several conditions to determine her mental and physical health. In the process, they discovered that she was both mentally and physically disabled. As a result of the tests, many wondered if the young girl had been abandoned by her parents after they realized she was disabled. Perhaps her disabilities contributed to her bizarre behavior.
Fortunately, after the child was treated for some time, she began walking normally on two feet and eating with her hands. “She is still not able to speak, but understands whatever you tell her and even smiles,” Singh explained.
While some believed her family may have abandoned the girl because of her poor health and an inability to care for her, other officials believed the child had been living in the forest since the day she was born. However, the theories were just that. Police reviewed missing children reports in order to identify her.
They also placed advertisements in the media and reached out to the press in order to determine her identify and find her parents. Officials had decided that the young girl would be sent to a home for juveniles until she was claimed. Then in April 2017, someone came forward.
It seemed that the young girl would end up in a group home, but then a couple went public and said that she was their daughter. Ramzan and Nazma Shah, purported to be her parents, explained that they had lost their daughter Aliza at a market a year previously. They claimed to have reported her disappearance to the police when it occurred.
However, they said the police were not only unhelpful but also demanded money from them. The father was so distressed that he made missing posters to help find his daughter. Nothing worked. The couple thought their child had either been kidnapped or had died.
But some officials don’t believe that she had been living in the northern Indian jungle for a very long time. The district chief forestry officer said, “I think the family members of this girl had been aware that she is not able to speak, and they may have abandoned her near the forest road. If she was living with monkeys it would have been for a few days only, not for a long time.”
The girl was initially nicknamed Durga after the Hindu goddess of destruction. Durga is a warrior goddess — an apt name for a child who faces such struggles. Still, her alleged father insisted she was his offspring.
“She’s my daughter,” Ramzan said. “She went missing last year and we did everything to find her. The joy of knowing she’s alive cannot be expressed in words. I feel so blessed to know we could get her back.” Ramzan added, “She’s not mentally stable. We got busy buying some medicines for a few seconds and she suddenly vanished. We looked for her everywhere but couldn’t find her.”
The girl alleged to be Aliza has been moved to a special unit for disabled children. When a visitor who claimed to be related to the child visited, “she did not respond to seeing him,” according to a hospital spokesman.
Her father, who has seven children, said: “We abandoned all hope. We eventually believed she was dead or picked up by someone, or traffickers. We were devastated. My wife did not eat or sleep for several weeks but eventually we had to carry on with our lives.”
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